The Properties of Local Barred Disks in the Field and Dense Environments: Implications for Galaxy Evolution

Stellar bars are the most efficient internal drivers of disk evolution because they redistribute material and angular momentum within the galaxy and dark matter halo. Mounting evidence suggests that processes other than major mergers, such as minor mergers, secular processes driven by bars, and clump coalescence, as well as smooth accretion, play an important role in galaxy evolution since z = 2. As a key step toward characterizing this evolution and constraining theoretical models, we determine the frequency and properties of bars in the local Universe in both field and cluster environment, based on three of our studies: Marinova & Jogee (2007), Barazza, Jogee, & Marinova (2008) and Marinova et al. (2009). Among field spirals of intermediate Hubble types in the OSU survey, we find using ellipse fitting that the bar fraction is 44% in the optical and 60% in the NIR, giving an extinction correction factor of approximately 1.4 at z similar to 0. Using data from the Abell 901/902 cluster system at z similar to 0.165 from the HST ACS survey STAGES, we find that the optical bar fraction is a strong trend of both absolute magnitude and host bulge-to-total ratio, increasing for galaxies that are brighter and/or more disk-dominated. The latter trend is also found in the field from SDSS. For bright early types and faint late types the optical bar fraction in the cluster is similar to that in the field. We find that between the core region and the virial radii of the clusters the optical bar fraction is not a strong function of local environment density. We discuss the implications of our results in the context of theoretical models of the impact of bars on galaxy evolution.